‘The Meg’ Takes Massive Bite Out Of Weekend Box Office Competition

Taking advantage of the usual August release lull, The Meg – a killer shark movie starring Jason Statham that wasn’t expected to make much of a commercial splash — massively overperformed in its opening weekend, reaching the number one spot with a domestic haul of $44.5 million.

Combined with a big overseas opening of $97 million, The Meg’sworldwide debut stands at $141.4 million. That figure more than doubles what most analysts were predicting the film would earn in its opening weekend and also puts The Meg ahead of its reported $130 million budget. With little in the way of upcoming competition for the rest of August, The Megcould hold onto the top spot for the next few weekends in a row.

Despite middling review scores from critics (48% on Rotten Tomatoes), The Megattracted enough moviegoers to knock Mission: Impossible – Fallout down to second place from its two-week perch at number one, with Fallout earning $20 million to bring its total domestic haul to $161.9 million. Disney’s Christopher Robindropped to third place with $12.4 million.

In addition to The Meg, two other major releases debuted this weekend. Sony’s horror flick Slender Man came in fourth place with a somewhat disappointing $11.3 million, while Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansmangrabbed the fifth spot with $10.7 million – not a bad haul considering it was only released in 1,512 theaters.

Here were the top 10 highest-grossing films domestically for the August 10-12 weekend, according to Box Office Mojo: